A former federal immigration service investigator faces up to 10 years in prison today as he is sentenced for harboring his illegal-alien girlfriend.
Lloyd Miner was a career immigration-enforcement officer who helped create an internal affairs unit for the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service. But shortly after a top-ranking service official was charged with taking bribes to hand out visas to Asian immigrants, Miner found himself under investigation.
Last year, a federal jury in Northern Virginia convicted him of harboring his girlfriend, Somoun, a Mongolian native he said he met at a club in 2005.
Prosecutors have asked for at least one year in jail, saying that Miner’s “abuse of the public trust is disturbing.”
But Miner told The Examiner he was being blamed for the immigration bureaucracy’s failings.
“I made all those comments about them and that stuff ended up getting back to Congress,” Miner said.
Federal immigration spokespersons could not be reached for comment on the Miner case Thursday evening.
Internal immigration officials began looking at Miner during the investigation of Robert Schofield, the top immigration official in Alexandria, who was ultimately convicted of selling visas and citizenship papers to Asian women for cash and sexual favors.
During a raid of Schofield’s home, authorities found a photo that showed Miner and Schofield together at a party in the Philippines.
Miner said his meeting Schofield in Southeast Asia was a coincidence.
Schofield’s 2006 arrest was a black eye to the immigration service. Not only did federal agents uncover that a high-ranking official was accepting $600,000 in bribes, but investigators discovered that Schofield had faced previous disciplinary problems for his relations with Asian women — including an affair with a prostitute that derailed a federal investigation of a Chinese gangster.
When confronted about that relationship, Schofield fled to East Asia, where he made $36,000 worth of unauthorized purchases on his government-issued credit card, according to court documents. Still, he remained with the agency until his arrest 10 years later.
Got a tip on immigration? Call Bill Myers at 202-459-4956 or send him an e-mail at [email protected].
